His twentieth-century successors were more self-effacing it seemed.

'Don't advertise much,' observed Dalziel looking at a discreet plaque which read ALBA PHARMACEUTICALS Research Division. 'And there's nowt on the gate.'

'Might as well have put a neon sign on the roof for all the good it's done them,' said Longbottom ringing the bell.

The door was opened by a man in a dark green uniform with the name 'PATTEN' and a logo consisting of an orange sunburst and the letters 'TecSec' at his breast. He was leanly muscular with close-cropped hair and a long scar down the right cheek which, helped by a slightly askew nose, suggested that at some time the whole face had been removed and rather badly stitched back on. Dalziel viewed him with the distaste of a professional soldier for private armies. But at least the man sized them up at a glance and didn't do anything silly like asking for identification.

He ushered them through the nineteenth into the twentieth century in the form of a modern reception area with a stainless-steel desk, pink fitted carpet and hessian-hung walls from which depended what might have been a selection of Prince Charles's watercolours left standing in the rain.

One of three doors almost invisible in their hessian camouflage opened and a slim fair-haired man in his thirties and a dinner jacket, who reminded Dalziel of someone but he couldn't quite say who, came towards them saying, 'My dear chap, you're soaked. No need, I'm sure. The fuzz must have plenty of pensioned-off sawbones all too keen to earn a bob doing basics.'

Assuming none of this solicitude was aimed at him, Dalziel said, 'Aye, and we sometimes make do with a barber and a leech. You'll be Batty, I daresay.'

'Indeed,' said the man regarding Dalziel with the air of one nostalgic for the days of tradesmen's entrances. 'And you…?'

'Superintendent Andrew Dalziel,' offered Longbottom.